From SAN FRANCISCO

It seems a man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote "This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag," on a deposit slip. While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo Bank.

After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it, and surmising from his spelling errors that he was not the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stick-up note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.

Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, "OK," and left the Wells Fargo Bank. The Wells Fargo teller then called the police, who arrested the man a few minutes later. He was waiting in line back at the Bank of America!

LICENSE TO STEAL

Two Kentucky men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead, they pulled the bumper off the truck. They panicked, fled and left the chain still attached to the machine and their bumper (license plate still attached).

IN THE BAG

A "tourist," supposedly on a golf holiday, made idle chatter at the customs counter. The customs official thought it odd that the golfer didn'tknow what a handicap was and asked the tourist to demonstrate his swing. He did - backwards. A substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.

MADE FOR TV

Guns For Hire, an Arizona company specializing in staged gunfights for Western movies, got a call from a woman who wanted to have her husband shot. She was sentenced to four years.

DO YOU ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS?

A Texan convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay $9600 in damages rather than serve a two-year prison sentence. He provided the court a forged check. He got his prison term back, plus eight more years.

YOU MEAN ME?

A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" His partner moved and the startled first bandit shot him.

DEADHEADS

A man in Orange County was ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in his mortuary van should be counted. The judged ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.

THIS WOULD BE ME

The judge called the case of People vs. Steven Lewon Crook. The bailiff opened the door to the holding cell and called, "Crook, come forward." Five of the prisoners entered the courtroom.

LEARN YOUR LESSON

A woman charged with a traffic violation stated her occupation as schoolteacher. The judge rose from the bench, "Madam, I have waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this court. Now sit at that table and write 'I will not pass through a red light' five hundred times."

AHH, THAT'S BETTER!

A judge in Louisville decided a jury went "a little bit too far" in recommending a sentence of 5,005 years for a man convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1,001 years.

OOPS! I BLEW THAT ONE!

A lawyer defended a man accused of burglary with: "My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by his limb." "Well put," the judge replied. "Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses." The defendant smiled. With his lawyer's assistance he detached his artificial limb, laid it on the bench, and walked out.

The following are from Rene Schweitzer.

HELLO

A woman was reporting her car as stolen, and mentioned that there was a car phone in it. The policeman taking the report called the phone and told the guy that answered that he had read the ad in the newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged to meet, and the thief was arrested.

OOPS

Drug possession defendant Christopher Jansen, on trial in March in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been searched without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because a "bulge" in Christopher's jacket could have been a gun. Nonsense, said Christopher, who happened to be wearing the same jacket that day in court. He handed it over so the judge could see it. The judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and laughed so hard he required a five minute recess to compose himself.

ME AND MY BIG MOUTH

Oklahoma City: Dennis Newton was on trial for the armed robbery of a convenience store in a district court when he fired his lawyer. Assistant District Attorney Larry Jones said Newton, 47, was doing a fair job of defending himself until the store manager testified that Newton was the robber. Newton jumped up, accused the woman of lying and then said, "I should have blown your (expletive) head off." The defendant paused, then quickly added, "if I'd been the one that was there." The jury took 20 minutes to convict Newton and recommended a 30 year sentence.

CAN I SEE SOME ID?

A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said "Because I don't believe you are over 21." The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didn't believe him. At this point the robber took his drivers license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over, and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.

I found these while going through some old disks.

IF THE KEY FITS

Police in Ft. Lauderdale are pretty sure they've got their man in a rape and robbery investigation. They say that Ken Willis left his keys at the crime scene. When police went to his home, the keys fit the lock. When they arrested Willis, he was wearing socks on his hands,

I'D LIKE TO BUY A CLUE

After eight months, police in Paola, Kansas still had no leads in the child molestation case of two young children- until one of the girls spotted the man on a television game show. Matthew Fenwick won $4,400 on Wheel of Fortune, but it won't cover his $50,000 bail.

COLLEGE, JUST SAY "NO"

A Wisconsin man was arrested and charged with attempted murder after attacking his father with a hatchet. Kenneth Kartman told police that he had to kill his family to prove his college thesis. According to District Attorney Jim Peterson, Kartman "believed that somewhere on the other side of the world, there would be a mother who would be killing her young son and that this would somehow bring the opposites into union and would in some way further the development of mankind." Peterson described Kartman as "somebody who wasn't thinking clearly at the time..."

YA'LL ARE FROM WHAT PLANET?

Three Texas men are in federal court on charges of conspiring to assassinate President Clinton and other government officials. Their plans, revealed last month in court documents, included producing botulism toxin from "chicken livers, chicken hearts and green beans with a little dirt," then shooting poison-tipped thorns from modified cigarette lighters to kill their intended victims.

The following are from the Idiot Stories Newsletter.

We had an officer who had pulled over this lady for some traffic violation. As things turned out, she had a warrant out for her. The officer brought her back to the department for me to pat down and cuff (being the only female officer there at the time). The suspect talked this officer into letting her boyfriend come get her car rather than getting it towed away. Which really surprised me, because this officer loved to use the Law to it's fullest extent! Well, the suspect had to use the ladies room, so I removed one cuff and let her go. In the meantime the boyfriend came to pick up her car. The officer asked to see his drivers license and the guy reached in his back pocket, pulled out a bag of weed, and laid in on the front desk and continued to dig in his pocket for his ID!!!!! The officer asked "What's that?" The guy said. "That's my smoke man!" A scuffle took place as the guy tried to retrieve his dope, the officer got one cuff on him and and the guy fled out the door. This officer was not in the best shape, and lucky for him, an off duty officer saw the dude running with one cuff on and tackled him. Both suspects were in separate rooms yelling at each other about how stupid they were.

In Albuquerque, NM. a guy tried to steal a trailer from a home improvement store. So he goes and hooks one up to his truck, he gets about two miles from the store when the trailer pops off the hitch and goes off the road. He goes back to get another one, and he gets a little farther(about 75 feet) from the first one, and this trailer pops off, and rolls off the road. So he goes back and yet again tries to take another trailer. This time he is going slowly since going fast causes the trailers to pop off. Well a cop has stopped to investigate the two trailer on the side of the road, and the guy driving by, clips the corner of the cop car, so the cop follows the guy and eventually pulls him over.

When his .38-caliber revolver failed to fire at its intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: he peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. Happily for most concerned, this time it worked.

The following is from Daily Comix.

The Belgium news agency Belga reported in November that a man suspected of robbing a jewelry store in Liege said he couldn't have done it "because he was busy breaking into a school at the same time." Police then arrested him for breaking into the school.

T'Chacka Mshinda Thorpe, 25, was arrested in Lynchburg, Va., in May and charged with possession of cocaine after a brief chase; police caught up to him after Thorpe tripped on his low-riding baggy pants, fell, and fractured his femur.

And in March, Edney Raphael, 39, running from a stabbing in Philadelphia with a bloody knife in his hand, was captured following a foot chase; he had turned his head to see where the officers were and run smack into a parking meter.

EDMONTON, Canada - That's a Canuck for you. A teenager had to abandon a car-jacking because he couldn't use the vehicle's manual stick-shift. The young man approached a woman driver in a Toronto parking lot, pulled a knife and told her to get out. But once he got in he was stymied by the manual transmission. After trying unsuccessfully to threaten another person into driving the car for him, he gave up and fled. The suspect was arrested later while trying to hijack yet another car.

HIALEAH, Florida - A would-be burglar was caught in the act when he became stuck inside the grease-slicked restaurant ventilator shaft for eight hours. Gustavo Rivera, 39, was rescued, and then arrested after he was found with his arms outstretched and his legs dangling between security grate.

Pennsylvania - A bank robber was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Instead of wearing masks, he and his accomplice had thought that rubbing citric acid on their faces would somehow blur their images on the security cameras.

Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store; paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.

INDIANA - An Indiana "farmer" was the victim of a cruel prank when he believed that he received a phone call from the authorities busting him for growing marijuana in his back yard. During the alleged conversation, the man was told that if he brought the plant, roots and all to the station, charges would not be pressed. Believing the call to be true, he cut down the eight foot plant and carried it into the lobby of the Sheriff's office. He was then placed into custody for suspected felony cultivation by surprised officers.

AMARILLO, Texas - Amarillo Police really cracked the case when they arrested suspected drug dealer Carton Meredith. A search of his person revealed $8,000 hidden in his butt. "That's 80 $100 bills," said Corporal Brent Harlan, of the Amarillo police department. Meredith claimed he earned the cash by sponsoring an unheard of St. Louis rap group called Forty Caliber. He has been charged with marijuana possession.

LOUISIANA - There is one bandit in Louisiana who had better give up armed robbery until he learns how to count. The man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer was $15.

NEW YORK - A car thief was all smiles while he took pictures of himself stealing a car, until he forgot to take the camera. While driving the car on the Belt Parkway in Queens, the young crook reportedly picked up a camera that was inside the car and took two photos while he was at the wheel. The stolen car was found in Nassau County a month later, with the camera still inside. The victim didn't notice the two exposures and brought the film in for development a few months later. She thought she had the wrong film when the unfamiliar face appeared in her photos.

SAGINAW, Michigan - Reading directions would have been helpful for a thief who robbed a restaurant in Saginaw, Michigan. The would be robber failed to escape after he pushed with all of his might on a door that was clearly marked "pull." According to police, the man eventually discovered his mistake, but it was already too late.

MADRID, Spain Corpulent would be thief, Pedro Cardona attempted to enter a house to ply his trade by "squeezing" through a doggie door. It was a lot like putting two pounds of bologna in a one pound bag as Cardona became wedged halfway through. Rescuers were forced to chop the door down with axes to free the thief.

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. They placed the message "HE'S LYING" in the copier, and pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed to the police.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylavania - Here is living proof that all crooks come in different shapes and sizes. A 6ft 4in man dressed in drag so he could use credit cards which had been stolen from a woman in September to buy a new car in the U.S. According to police, the man tried to buy a Mitsubishi car with one of the woman's cards featuring her name but displayed his picture on it. The dealership was alerted when it ran a credit check and was told the woman had been a victim of fraud. The man has since then been charged with forgery and attempted theft.

DENVER, Colorado - A brilliant parolee put herself back on the hot seat after posing naked for websites wearing only an electronic ankle monitoring bracelet and brandishing guns. The nude photographs led authorities to search 32-year-old's Katica Crippen's home in Denver, Colorado where they found seven firearms. Crippen, who had been on parole for 1997 convictions in Colorado Springs for selling drugs and theft, now faces additional charges of parole violation and felony firearm possession.

When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find an ill man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

Randy Nestor, 28, was a considerate car thief. When the stolen cars became hot, he didn't just abandon them, he torched them. Setting the cars on fire, he reasoned, helped the owners collect insurance on their vehicles.

This criminal habit became his downfall. After a 10-year career of theft, Randy burned to death in Pittsburgh, PA in a van which he had set fire to from the inside. He hadn't realized that the door handle on the driver's side was broken. Friends tried to release him, but the door was locked. His burned body was found inside the van on Sunday.

A pair of burglars would have gotten away with their haul of televisions if it wasn't for one factor. As the pair were about to speed off, they realized they had forgotten the remote controls, so they returned to get them. By then, a resident had already alerted police after she'd spotted the two men outside her neighbor's house Sunday loading a television into a sport utility vehicle. Police said they found Jaron Grosby, 20, behind the wheel of the SUV, and Wesley Jackson, 20, hiding behind the vehicle. Jackson reportedly confessed to the officers that he and Grosby stole the televisions after breaking a window to get into the house.

MANCHESTER, Connecticut - Apparently criminals have to eat too. A robber held up a popular fast food chain at gunpoint then ordered the cook to prepare him a Whopper with extra cheese. The gunman reportedly walked into the fast food shop in Manchester, Connecticut, and went straight to the restroom. Moments later he walked back up front wearing a bandana over his face and brandishing a hand gun. He proceeded to herd the crew into a walk-in freezer and then took the manager to open the safe. With the money in hand, he walked the manager back to the freezer, then order the cook out and ordered him to make him a Whopper with cheese. Police are still trying to find the thief before he runs out of money or the next snack attack occurs.

Two men brandishing shotguns ran into a Los Angeles bank and yelled for everyone to lie down, which everyone complied. When there was no one left standing to get the robbers the money, they evidently got confused and ran away.

A woman in Canada called the police with a complaint that she had been burnt in a drug deal. She claimed that a man had sold her a rock of crack cocaine, but when she brought it home, it "looked like baking powder." The police dispatched a narcotics agent to her house, who tested the rock and verified that, despite its appearance, it was indeed cocaine. The woman was promptly arrested for drug possession. The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is encouraging anyone who thinks they may have been fooled into buying fake drugs to come forward.

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin - Only in Wisconsin would a robber give up a hostage in exchange for a chicken sandwich and a soda. A knife-wielding robber stormed into a Milwaukee shop and grabbed a young woman, threatening bodily harm unless staff members handed over some cash. The robber revealed during negotiations with shop worker Jaspal Singh that he was hungry. Singh gave the would-be robber a sandwich and a can of pop in exchange for the girl while discretely dialing the police. The robber sat and ate until the police arrived to arrest him.

In order not to be identified by his clothing, a North Caro-lina bank robber stripped to his underwear and shoved a large wad of cash inside them. He was later "debriefed" when someone reported a man with strangely bulging underwear running down the street.

Louis Abright had the bright idea of robbing a branch of a local bank in Lafayette, Louisiana with his head covered in whipped cream. By the time he demanded the money from the teller, his mask had melted and the police arrived lickity spilt.

Paderborn, Germany - Peter Howeler has been dubbed the *Bungling Bandit* after entering a bank carrying a pistol. In his attempt to hide it from the guard on duty, he shoved the firearm into his back pocket, discharging it into his left buttock. After being rushed to a local hospital, he was later charged with attempted robbery.

JASPER, Indiana - In an incredible coincidence of timing, a fleeing burglar took a giant leap of faith and landed right in the long arms of the law, literally. Trent Carie, 21, was inside the Main Street Restaurant & Bar when a passing police officer spotted him and suspected a robbery was underway. According to Sgt. Mike Fowler, Carie ran from the store and jumped over a tall fence only to land in the arms of another officer and a trooper who had just arrived at the scene. Carie is believed to be the culprit of at least a dozen burglaries of several businesses in the area in recent weeks.

Know any more Stupid Criminals?
Email me and I'll add them to the list